~ How to live without sugar

Tag Archives: why I don’t use dextrose

Like many people, I came to sugar-free living via the excellent book Sweet Poison. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to give up the white stuff. In this book, David Gillespie clearly spells out what fructose does to us, and how it makes us fat. David recommends dextrose as an alternative sweetener for baking, and I have used it in the past with great success.

My regular readers will know that while I have been mostly sugar-free since 2012, I got completely derailed by both of my pregnancies and fell off the wagon big-time. Once I gave birth, I found it very easy to get back on it, and since the birth of my son I have been sugar-free again for months now, without any problems at all.

My brother, D and I had lined up a movie to watch the other night (Kingsman: The Secret Service, which I highly recommend if you want to escape reality for a couple of hours) and I really felt like a treat. I hadn’t done any sugar free baking for quite some time, nor am I in the habit of using alternative sweeteners in my usual meals or drinks.

I decided to make a chocolate and raspberry brownie and used dextrose as my sweetener. It was delicious and the three of us wolfed it down.

The next day I woke up feeling extremely tired, despite having had a reasonable night’s sleep (as much as one can have with a 10-month-old in the house). I got increasingly irritable as the morning went on, and completely blew my stack over something trivial. I was starving all day, and the next day, and the next. I don’t remember having a reaction like that to dextrose in the past, but it’s not one I care to repeat.

I have always viewed alternative sweeteners with suspicion (and use them sparingly) and will now be crossing dextrose firmly off my list. Of course, please remember that this was just me, and if you use dextrose without any ill effects, more power to you.

I guess what I recommend is to do your own research and see what effects alternative sweeteners have on your body. I am finding more and more that I simply cannot have my cake and eat it too.